Presently, most utility companies have to rely on their customers to physically call in and report power outages and their location. The process of collecting these calls and gathering enough information to restore an outage takes a great amount of time.
Various products are available that help automate the process of detecting power outages and reporting them for utilities. Typically, these known devices are permanently programmed and use telephone lines for communicating their identity back to the utility. These known devices generate DTMF tones and send them to a converter box that converts the tones to a serial format. In most cases, this converter box is attached to a personal computer at the electric utility. This known system works adequately for collecting data, but requires the purchase and connection of a separate converter box to a serial port of a personal computer that is dedicated to use for outage notification. In the known devices, the personal computer becomes the catalyst for generating the desired output of a facsimile or paging signal. Thus, utilities are required to invest into a personal computer that can only be used for collecting outage data, and both the computer and its serial port become unavailable for other uses.
A remote meter reading system that utilizes telephone line and modems to obtain electric power data is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,568 to Merriam et al. entitled "Remote Meter Reading Method and Apparatus." The Merriam meter reading system is typical of prior art electric power information systems that collect data and outputs that data in DTMF tones. These type of prior art devices, including the Merriam system, send the DTMF tones to a converter box that translates the data into ASCII code and then sends the information to a dedicated utility company computer.
A utility reporting system that utilizes facsimile to output a report to the utility without an intervening computer system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,523 to McEachern entitled "Electronic Remote Data Recorder with Facsimile Output for Utility AC Power Systems." The McEachern system measures AC power parameters and communicates them telephonically to a facsimile device only. The McEachern system does not disclose any method of communicating a power report to a selectively programmable choice of the utility computer, a facsimile device, or a pager device.
Like most businesses, utilities face human resource limitations and high equipment costs. Furthermore, as power companies face deregulation and increased competition, customer service is even more important to retain business. A primary concern of customers is that they do not lose power for long periods of time. One of the primary reasons for time delay in restoring power is the lack of knowledge of the occurrence and location of the outage by the utility. Also, power outages are subject to occur at any time day or night. Utility personnel may be available at varying locations, and, therefore, a method and apparatus for transmitting power outage notification reports to a computer, facsimile machine, or pager according to variable parameters is needed and would be very desirable.